#Busted Buster
"3.0 is usable. Very. If there never was a 3.1, you could continue
to use 3.0 for a longgg time without too many problems. The busted
buster is usable. Probably 90% of A4000s will ever have a Zorro-III
DMA card in them. So why should you force Commodore to upgrade much
more than the 10% of machines that need the upgrade?"
True, 3.0 is very usable and suprisingly stable for a beta OS.
However, I still feel the comparison between the OS upgrade and
hardware defects is too different to make it fair. Most users knew
that 3.0 was a Beta release before they purchased the 4000, and also
knew that an upgrade to 3.x would probably be fairly cheap and
painless. No big deal. But the Busted Buster problem didn't start
really showing up until the 4091 was released, and then CBM had no
choice but to admit to a 4000 design defect.
It wouldn't be so bad if it was just the 4091 that was being affected,
but it's not. Some of the new graphics cards can take advantage of
Zorro-III DMA, and I believe GVP's PhonePak will use Zorro-III DMA if
its available. What if someone comes out with a DSP board, could be
that it would take advantage of Zorro-III DMA as well.
"By the way, if you pay to have the upgrade done because it is out of
warranty or you didn't buy a 4091, the motherboard swap only costs
$200. Admitedly, it'd be nice to deal with a business that placed
fairness to customers as its number one priority and always ate
whatever cost that might create. As someone who bought a 4000 with
busted buster myself, I understand your sentiments. But I knew what
I was buying into when I bought from Commodore… :-)"
Yep, $200 is probably a reasonable cost, but thats not the point. CBM
developed a computer (4000) that had Zorro-III slots, and most people
expected the DMA to function normally. It didn't, so CBM should have
allowed a motherboard swap on a request basis to make things right.
It would have gone a long way in keeping the 4000 owners happy,
considering the other problems 4000 owners have had to put up with.
If I see a posting that "This will be the last Amiga I will ever
own", it doesn't surprise me in the least. CBM hasn't done much to
keep 4000 owners happy and shows how much they really don't care
about their customers. Sure, I like my 4000 and the AGA Chipset, but
all the fancy hardware in the world doesn't mean much if the company
doesn't stand behind the product.